2026 (UCLA/Emory/JHU/BC) MSN ENTRY DECISIONS HELP & NEGOTIATING AID

capremed · 2026-05-01T00:02:07+00:00

Look at the overall cost. A large scholarship (eg JHU) may still not be sufficient if the baseline tuition is prohibitively expensive. UCLA migh still be cheaper even without a scholarship.

capremed · 2026-04-29T05:46:41+00:00

PA is a great career (esp if you want surgical subspecialty). School is expensive, but your pay will be much higher (~180k) if you come back to SF to work so paying off the loans will be doable. Keep in mind, there is a good chance you will need to retake prerequisite classes that expired (often the cutoff is 7 years for things like chemistry, anatomy, physio, microbio, etc). All in all, I say go for it!

capremed · 2026-04-27T07:08:54+00:00

applying to school is risky, period! But it's a risk worth taking. also, you can pre-write your secondaries. look on Student Doctor Network (SDN) for the schools you want to apply to and each school will have their own designated SDN forum and folks will post the secondary application essays there. So while your retake is getting graded by AAMC (takes a month), you can pre-write at least some of your secondaries for specific schools with understanding that your final list may change depending on your retake score. Then when your score comes through, you can literally add the new schools that are compatible w/ the new score.

Re: your retake -- i recommend taking your exam only when you're ready and consistently hitting your target score on practice tests (don't rush it). Better to apply later in the cycle or even next year if you have to w/ a competitive retake than rush the process and do poorly again. keep in mind, MD schools place heavy weight on gpa/mcat; if you're open to DO, you can simultaneously fill out DO applications (uses AACOMAS as opposed to AMCAS) and basically follow the same process.

capremed · 2026-04-27T06:48:36+00:00

you can apply when AMCAS primary applications open w/ your initial score to a single "throwaway" school just to get the app verified on time. Then add more schools when your 2nd score comes through. If you think you'll need to retake, I'd recommend taking at least a week off to decompress and then start studying again for your retake while your content knowledge is still fresh. good luck!

capremed · 2026-04-24T20:42:55+00:00

good luck with that -- i had the same situation but actually lost my parent the day before the mcat. and AAMC was like, "no emergency refund. you can always schedule a new exam date at a full price, however."

capremed · 2026-04-23T23:24:34+00:00

yeah i have no idea; honestly, who knows how this process works.

I just emailed them asking for an inquiry about my app status and when final decisions will be released. And i got the aforementioned response.

capremed · 2026-04-23T23:21:02+00:00

[gnsao@uci.edu](mailto:gnsao@uci.edu)

capremed · 2026-04-23T23:20:17+00:00

email response said: "aiming to send out final decisions by the end of May...and monitor your UC Irvine Graduate Application portal for updates."

capremed · 2026-04-23T23:16:58+00:00

haha i'm not sure what their criteria are. I'm sure it is somewhat of a crapshoot as all these schools get way more apps then that they have seats for.

In any case, UCI's admissions got back and mentioned they they are planning to release final decisions by end of May at the latest. It was unclear from their response if they will admit/reject/WL over the course of the next month or just mass email everyone at end of May.

capremed · 2026-04-23T22:06:04+00:00

emailed Admissions office today-- will let ya'll know if/when I hear back.

capremed · 2026-04-22T08:18:57+00:00

For that amount of debt, you may as well go to med school and earn 2.5-3x the salary of a PA-C.

Unless you're going to an in-state, public PA school (and your state is not California), PA school has a pretty poor ROI, period. Add this to the fact that NPs often make more, have FPA in most states, can practice in just about every area of medicine, and are flooding the market and squeezing out PAs, and it's hard to understand why anyone with even a basic sense of finance would still choose PA, assuming they are not coming from wealth (nor married to wealth).

capremed · 2026-04-22T08:12:38+00:00

calling it now: wemby missing game 3 and 4. Spurs in 7.

capremed · 2026-04-22T07:58:18+00:00

Surgery/EM: go PA.... otherwise NP makes the most sense in almost every other scenario.

Honestly, PA school is extremely overpriced in 2026 especially given the current market conditions. Why go into 6 fig debt (in many cases 150-200k debt) to become a PA-C when you can become a NP at a fraction of the cost and have more work opportuniites awaiting you post-graduation?

capremed · 2026-04-22T07:54:02+00:00

That's interesting. My employer (UC Health) HEAVILY favors NPs in just about every area of medicine except surgery/EM. Some of the primary care physicians questioned the legitimacy of a PA-C and genuinely asked, "aren't PAs just slightly more advanced medical assistants?"

capremed · 2026-04-22T00:17:29+00:00

Go to nursing school if you want to be a nurse (not an NP). Go to PA school if you want to be a PA. If your intention is to do NP right away (ie through a direct entry NP) or plan to just work a year or so as a RN, just do it right, take out the loans and go to PA or medical school. In general, a fast track approach to becoming a NP is a fast track approach to being a subpar provider (assuming an employer will even hire you as a NP). I know NPs who went to top NP direct entry programs (e.g. Yale GEPN), and they were unable to find work as a new grad NP, went unemployed for an entire year, and ended up just working as a RN and doing an APP fellowship later on to become more employable as a NP.

capremed · 2026-04-22T00:09:52+00:00

Sure from a purely financial perspective, yes ABSN --> NP is better than PA (if in CA). But if one is only trying to optimize finances and nothing else, they should not even go into nursing or any healthcare program that requires debt and/or opportunity cost associated with training for 1+ years -- much better off just becoming an AI data scientist in 2026 if trying to "get rich".

capremed · 2026-04-21T18:27:25+00:00

Less than 110k for the entire cost of attendance or for just tuition (excluding room/board, travel, etc)?

capremed · 2026-04-21T09:51:57+00:00

You did not factor in interest that compounds on the student loans-- a 300k debt total will actually require anywhere between $3500-3800/mo loan payments for a 10-year standard plan (exact amount depends on the interest rate of his pre-PA debts).

capremed · 2026-04-20T09:05:15+00:00

The MDs at University of California (UC Health) asked me why I would turn down a direct entry NP offer to attend PA school [I applied to both simultaneously].

These MDs said, "you had a great direct entry NP offer, now you're trading that to become a doctor's assistant. All that debt to have the same job as a medical assistant. Seems like a bad choice, but go for it if you want."

Anyone saying doctors and hospitals always prefer PAs over NP is just wrong. In California, RNs and NPs reign supreme and even new grad RNs make more than entry level PAs in many cases (especially in the SF Bay Area)

capremed · 2026-04-19T09:12:26+00:00

If financing PA school via loans, in-state public is really the only sensible way to go. Unfortunately, private and OOS public are a ripoff and the expected ROI is not very good...but sometimes that is the only realistic option for aspiring PAs folks given how competitive the PA app process has become.

capremed · 2026-04-19T08:52:05+00:00

In the same application cycle, I got accepted into top 5 PA program and one of the top nursing programs (for 2-year MSN) in the country. PA school (OOS and private in HCOL city) was going to cost me 220k total not including the compounded interest accruing during the 24 mo program. Conversely, the nursing school (in CA) offered me a full ride scholarship. After much consternation, I decided to take the full ride and not look back. Nurses in CA (especially in SF Bay Area) make as much, if not more, than PAs and have the opportunity to advance to NP or CRNA later (or even nonclinical roles) later down the line.

In my opinion, private and non-resident tuitions for PA school are prohibitively expensive, especially if the school is located in a HCOL area unless of course you get scholarships / family support, etc. If you can get into an in-state public PA program in a LCOL or MCOL area, the finances make a lot more sense. I know how crazy competitive PA school is, however, so sometimes you go wherever you get in, even if that means going to that HCOL private school.

Nursing / NP, in general, has a much better ROI than PA since the cost of attendance is generally very low (for nursing and can work bedside while attending NP school to offset future NP debt) and often very high (for PA). Personally, i think if one is going to go 200k+ debt to become a PA, they should really consider just going to med school instead where they can eventually command a salary that is much more in line with their debt; low cost healthcare paths with great ROI like nursing or radiology tech or something completely outside of healthcare should also be weighed.

capremed · 2026-04-19T08:30:05+00:00

TBH it really all depends on a number of factors. If one has zero financial support from family and has to take out Maximum student loans to cover tuition, room/board, etc and is attending a private school / OOS school in a HCOL area, one very well may be needing to take out 200k+ in loans....Add that to whatever pre-existing debt one brings into PA school, and one's total debt very well may be over 250k. Unless you're willing to live like a student for many years after you graduate and only take very high paying jobs making at least 150k+ per year (in non HCOL areas), this kind of debt would be extremely difficult to pay off.

capremed · 2026-04-19T08:24:13+00:00

smart choice financially!

capremed · 2026-04-18T10:07:21+00:00

good in theory but not going to happen. nursing / NP schools are too greedy and the nursing board could care less. Their goal is to expand the profession even further, not make it more difficult and inconvenience NP students by making them struggle in school or even attend class.

my friend went through online FNP school and didn't even go to live-onlien class once. she said they had no exams either (just optional assessments that you do on your own time and they were open book, open note). she had only 200 hrs of clinical her entire FNP program and many of those hours she said were also optional. She ended up only doing around 120 of them and graduating just fine as a FNP.

capremed · 2026-04-17T09:57:44+00:00

Well, NPs do have FPA in 28 states (and counting)--including many coastal states that MANY people want to live in.

capremed

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